Meadow Grass: Tales of New England LifeBrown, Alice
General
Meadow Grass: Tales of New England Life
Brown, Alice
New England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"Don't you want your fortune told?" she asked, meaningly. "Here's the
witch all ready. Ain't it well for me I wa'n't born a hunderd year ago?
Shouldn't I ha' sizzled well? An' now, all there is to burn me is God
A'mighty's sunshine!"
Elvin laughed lightly.
"I guess I don't need any fortune," he said. "Mine looks pretty fair
now. I don't feel as if anybody'd better meddle with it." But he had
not withdrawn his arm, and his gaze still dwelt on hers.
"You know suthin' you don't mean to tell," said Dilly, speaking so
rapidly that although Rosa bent forward to listen, she caught only a
word, here and there. "You think you won't have to tell, but you will.
God A'mighty'll make you. You'll be a stranger among your own folks,
an' a wanderer on the earth; till you tell. There! go along! Go an' see
the punkins an' crazy-quilts!"
She withdrew her hand, and turned away. Elvin, his face suddenly
blanched, looked after her, fascinated, while she went quickly up the
garden walk. An impatient word from Rosa recalled him to himself, and
he got heavily into the wagon and drove on again.
When Dilly reached the steps where her new guest had seated herself,
her manner had quite changed. It breathed an open frankness, a sweet
and homely warmth which were very engaging. Molly spoke first.
"How pleased he is with her!" she said, dreamily.
"Yes," answered Dilly, "but to-day ain't tomorrer. They're both
light-complected. It's jest like patchwork. Put light an' dark
together, I say, or you won't git no figger. Here, le's have a mite o'
cake! Mis' Tolman's a proper good cook, if her childern _have_ all
turned out ducks, an' took to the water. Every one on 'em's took back
as much as three generations for their noses an' tempers. Strange they
had to go so fur!"
She broke the rich brown loaf in the middle, and divided a piece
with Molly. Such were the habits calculated to irritate the
conventionalities of Tiverton against her. Who ever heard of breaking
cake when one could go into the house for a knife! They ate in silence,
and the delights of the summer day grew upon Molly as they never did
save when she felt the nearness of this queer little woman. Turn which
side of her personality she might toward you, Dilly could always bend
you to her own train of thought.
"I come down to talk things over," said Molly, at last, brushing the
crumbs of cake from her lap. "I've got a chance in the shoe-shop."
"Do tell! Well, ain't that complete? Don't you say one word, now! I
know how 'tis. You think how you'll have to give up the birds' singin',
an' your goin' into the woods arter groundpine, an' stay cooped up in a
boardin'-house to Sudleigh. I know how 'tis! But don't you fret. You
come right here an' stay Sundays, an' we'll eat up the woods an' drink
up the sky! There! It's better for ye, dear. Some folks are made to
live in a holler tree, like me; some ain't. You'll be better on't among
folks."
Molly's eyes filled with tears.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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